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Economic Reform

Books

Oxford University Press: Since the 1990s, Beijing’s leaders have firmly rejected any fundamental reform of their authoritarian one-party political system, even as a decades-long boom has reshaped China’s economy and society. On the surface, their efforts have been a success. Political turmoil has toppled former communist Eastern Bloc regimes, internal unrest overtaken Middle East nations, and populist movements risen to challenge established Western democracies. China, in contrast, has appeared a relative haven of stability and growth.But as Carl Minzner shows, a closer look at China’s reform era reveals a different truth. Over the past three decades, a frozen political system has fueled both the rise of entrenched interests within the Communist Party itself and the systematic underdevelopment of institutions of governance among state and society at large. Economic cleavages have widened. Social unrest has worsened. Ideological polarization has deepened.{node, 45901}Now, to address these looming problems, China’s leaders are progressively cannibalizing institutional norms and practices that have formed the bedrock of the regime’s stability in the reform era. Technocratic rule is giving way to black-box purges; collective governance sliding back towards single-man rule. The post-1978 era of “reform and opening up” is ending. China is closing down. Uncertainty hangs in the air as a new future slouches towards Beijing to be born. End of an Era explains how China arrived at this dangerous turning point, and outlines the potential outcomes that could result. {chop}

The day after the Party Congress ended on October 24, Xi Jinping strode across the stage of the massive Great Hall of the People with the six newly announced members of the 19th Politburo Standing Committee, the body that rules China. What might...

Financial Times

The official heroes of China’s state-sector reform program range from dedicated anti-graft investigators, who have purged dozens of allegedly corrupt executives over recent years, to strategically minded administrators determined to create a stable...

Chris Buckley is a highly regarded and very resourceful correspondent based in Beijing for The New York Times. He has worked as a researcher and journalist in China since 1998, including a stint at Reuters, and is one of the few working China...

New York Times

Books

Unlikely Partners recounts the story of how Chinese politicians and intellectuals looked beyond their country’s borders for economic guidance at a key crossroads in the nation’s tumultuous 20th century. Julian Gewirtz offers a dramatic tale of competition for influence between reformers and hardline conservatives during the Deng Xiaoping era, bringing to light China’s productive exchanges with the West.When Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors seized the opportunity to reassess the wisdom of China’s rigid commitment to Marxist doctrine. With Deng Xiaoping’s blessing, China’s economic gurus scoured the globe for fresh ideas that would put China on the path to domestic prosperity and ultimately global economic power. Leading foreign economists accepted invitations to visit China to share their expertise, while Chinese delegations traveled to the United States, Hungary, Great Britain, West Germany, Brazil, and other countries to examine new ideas. Chinese economists partnered with an array of brilliant thinkers, including Nobel Prize winners, World Bank officials, battle-scarred veterans of Eastern Europe’s economic struggles, and blunt-speaking free-market fundamentalists.Nevertheless, the push from China’s senior leadership to implement economic reforms did not go unchallenged, nor has the Chinese government been eager to publicize its engagement with Western-style innovations. Even today, Chinese Communists decry dangerous Western influences and officially maintain that China’s economic reinvention was the Chinese Communist Party’s achievement alone. Unlikely Partners sets forth the truer story, which has continuing relevance for China’s complex and far-reaching relationship with the West. —Harvard University Press{chop}

Renowned as a trading town during the Qing dynasty, the eastern city of Yiwu again became famous for its markets after China’s economic reforms kicked in during the 1980s. Since then, the metropolis of 1.2 million people has transformed into a hub...

It is difficult to say with any certainty how China would have evolved had Zhao Ziyang not been overthrown in 1989. The ostensible cause of his purge was his refusal to endorse martial law and authorize the use of force to suppress the Tiananmen...

Forbes

For most Chinese, the 1990s were a period of intense material pragmatism. Economic development was the paramount social and political concern, while the various state ideologies that had guided policy during the initial decades of the People’s...

On November 30, the International Monetary Fund approved the Chinese renminbi, also known as the yuan, as one of the world’s leading currencies, underscoring the country’s rising global financial importance. What’s behind the decision and what...

Washington Post

It would be a sad end to an amazing story. An economic miracle—one that lifted 300 million people from poverty and shifted the world's economic center of gravity—collapsing under the weight of risky investments and a financial crisis.This seems...

When African policy makers scan the globe in search of inspiration on how to structure their economies, that search often leads to Beijing. Not surprisingly, African leaders look at what China has done over the past 30 years where it went from being...

Wall Street Journal

On Aug. 18, China’s stock market plummeted by a vertigo-inducing 6.2 percent in one day of trading, part of a months-long decline that’s erased over $3 trillion worth of market value from the country’s equity markets. That followed last week’s...

New York Times

Nearly two years ago China’s Communist Party released a major economic reform blueprint, whose signature phrase was that market forces would be given a “decisive role” in resource allocation. That Third Plenum Decision and other policy...

Economist

Concern about the middle-income trap has grabbed public attention again. The minister of finance, Lou Jiwei, recently said at Tsinghua University that China had a “50-50 chance” of sliding into it in the next five to 10 years. However, many...

China Daily

On March 7, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by David Shambaugh arguing that “the endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun...and it has progressed further than many think.” Shambaugh laid out a variety of signs he believes...

Xinhua

Last week, Arthur Kroeber, Editor of the China Economic Quarterly opined that “…the Chinese state is not fragile. The regime is strong, increasingly self-confident, and without organized opposition.” His essay, which drew strong, if divided,...

Wall Street Journal

Three recent items of news deserve attention. First, revisions to the budget law were passed late last month. Second, in a speech this month marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National People's Congress, Party General Secretary...

Two recent stories by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists detailed China’s elite funneling money out of China to tax havens in the Caribbean. We asked contributors to weigh the impact of the revelations.

Deal Book

An index of Chinese manufacturing growth released on January 23 showed that the most important cog in the country’s economy, the world’s second-largest, was contracting for the first time in six months.

Susan Shirk:United States Vice President Joseph Biden is the American political figure who has spent the most time with Xi Jinping and has the deepest understanding of Xi as an individual. Before Xi’s selection as P.R.C. president and C.C.P. general...

The reforms called for by the Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Party Congress have been, like so much else in China over the past few decades, part of an ongoing Chinese quest for national unity, wealth, and power. But, for those of us steeped in...

Wall Street Journal

There is hope that the Third Plenum, an important meeting in the life cycle of each five-year Party Congress, could bring real change in the spheres of real estate, banking, state-owned enterprises and currency.&nbsp;

In November 2012, seven men were appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s supreme governing body. At the time, economic headwinds, nationalist protests, and the Bo Xilai scandal presented huge challenges for the regime. Would the...

China’s economy is already two-thirds the size of the economy of the U.S., and it’s been growing five times as fast. But now, China’s economy is beginning to slow and is facing a raft of difficult problems.&nbsp; If China’s leaders don’t address...

Forbes

China’s economy grew by 7.8% in the third quarter, its fastest pace since the end of 2012. For most world leaders heading into a party conclave, this would be triumphant news, but now&nbsp;the debate is over how far Xi can and should go to...

Following are ChinaFile Conversation participants’ reactions to “China: Superpower or Superbust?” in the November-December issue of The National Interest in which author Ian Bremmer says that China’s state-capitalism is ill-equipped to absorb the...

Bloomberg

China’s central government called for “unrelenting” implementation of its economic policies and reform measures to consolidate the nation’s recovery from a two-quarter slowdown and improve the quality of growth.&nbsp;

Public Radio International

In the midst of it all, the Chinese people increasingly expect a different kind of relationship with their government – one of citizens and not subjects. They want their rights respected and their preferences heard.&nbsp;

Barry Naughton:Paul Krugman in a recent post (“How Much Should We Worry About a China Shock?” The New York Times, July 20, 2013) tells us NOT to worry about the impact of a slowing China on global exports, but to be worried, very worried about the...

Reuters

The new leadership has signalled it is prepared to tolerate slower growth to move the economy away from export-led growth and towards one driven by domestic demand, with 7 percent annual expansion seen as the bottom line.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Reuters

China needs another round of “decisive measures” to make sure it continues its successful economic growth as its margins of safety are falling amid growing domestic problems, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest report.&nbsp;

Wall Street Journal

As China hopes to reshape its economy to be less reliant on construction and heavy industry, and more reliant on consumer spending, the industries that benefited the most from China’s rise are now being hurt while those aimed at Chinese consumers...

The State Council announced on June 19 that it would expand the New Third Board, an over-the-counter (OTC) market for non-listed companies’ shares, to include all small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) nationwide.One of the experts estimated the...